Agriculture and fishing

For 53-year-old farmer Ros Mao, it’s not just the early bird that catches the worm. The Takeo province farmer has raised millions of earthworms for eight years in Tram Trak district, selling the slimy red creatures and using the manure they create to grow his ...

Child labour was draining the Kingdom’s brainpower and adversely affecting 750,000 of its children, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said yesterday. Speaking at a three-day conference on child agricultural labour, Kaing Khim, deputy director-general of fisheries administration at the MAFF, said ...

Investment in Cambodian rubber plantations increased by 255 per cent in 2011 on rising global demand for the commodity. There were 20 new projects worth US$675 million in the Kingdom last year, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. There were nine ...

The bilateral relations between Cambodia and China in terms of investment, trade and tourism have become stronger in the past year thanks to the two countries’ good relations, said officials Friday. Cambodia attracted China’s investments of 1.19 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, up 71 percent from ...

Thai cassava farmers have asked Cambodia to stop exporting the commodity into Thailand in an attempt to keep prices high and avoid saturating the market, officials said yesterday. Sao Sarat, Pailin provincial cabinet chief, said that Thai government officials representing local cassava farmers met with Pailin ...

Nautisco Seafood Manufacturing Inc, a Canadian-Cambodian shrimp producer in Preah Sihanouk province, has accused the private equity fund Leopard Capital, one of its shareholders, of draining the company of its finances. In a statement released Friday, Nautisco said that Phnom Penh Municipal Court had ordered the ...

The US government is working with a Cambodian microfinance institution to finance $2.7million in loans to farmers and small- and medium-sized agro-businesses in Battambang, Kompong Thom, Pursat and Siem Reap provinces in order to improve their access to credit, the US Embassy said. USAid will work ...

Cambodia’s gross domestic product grew 6.9 per cent year-on-year in 2011, and is set to increase to 6.5 per cent this year, according to preliminary projections from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Agriculture, which was hit hard by floods last year, climbed 3.3 per cent, ...

Dry-season rice farmers in some areas west of the Tonle Sap River and in eastern provinces are appealing to the government for help as the reservoirs they rely on for irrigation are drying up faster than usual, farmers and officials said yesterday. Officials at the ministries ...

More than 300 villagers from two districts in Kampong Speu province joined forces yesterday to protest in front of the provincial court over two land disputes, vowing to continue until authorities resolved them and released a mother of seven jailed last month after she had ...

Human rights group Licadho raised the alarm yesterday over the increased use of armed force by authorities as they seek to suppress protests over Cambodia’s numerous land disputes. It noted that during the past two months, security forces have opened fire on villagers during three ...

Despite a 67 per cent drop in food imports to Cambodia in 2011, inflation in exporting countries drove an 18 per cent rise in the total value of the imports. Food imports fell from 769,993 tonnes in 2010 to 254,080 in 2011, while the total value ...

Some commercial banks could increase loans to the agricultural sector this year, according to industry insiders who cited improvements in the sector and a rise in crop prices. Cambodian farmers lack the capital needed for inputs such as seeds and fertiliser, while domestic rice millers often ...

An 11-year-old HIV-positive girl evicted from Borei Keila moved back to Phnom Penh to live with her aunt because she had no access to medication at her relocation site in Kandal province, she said yesterday. During another day of protests outside the National Assembly, schoolgirl Theng ...

Pig prices in Cambodia have fallen by 18 percent in the past three months due to a massive oversupply of pork in the country, an official at the Cambodian Pig Raisers Association said yesterday. The reason for the oversupply is twofold: Thailand increased its pig exports ...

Dramatic new video footage of the January 18 Kratie province land dispute shooting has been released on the internet, depicting TTY rubber company security guards opening fire on a crowd of unarmed villagers. The 48-second video, recorded by a villager on a mobile phone and uploaded ...

Plans for a 5,000-hectare banana farming project in Koh Kong province, proposed last year by an Australian and a Japanese company, look set to go ahead, with state news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) yesterday reporting that the project would cost $50 million. Last Friday, the ...

More than 300 demonstrators yesterday marked the third anniversary of the forced eviction of Phnom Penh’s Dey Krahorm community, one of the city’s most violent land evictions. Five international rights groups also sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen urging the government to stop land ...

Some of Cambodia’s biggest exporters have experienced a sizeable decline in milled-rice shipments this month, with one insider putting the number as high as 40 per cent year-on-year. The waning figure stands in stark contrast to last year’s milled-rice export numbers, which increased about 22 per ...

A deadly land dispute in Pursat province ended over the weekend with a victory for the villagers, but they said yesterday this might have more to do with the upcoming commune elections than a change of heart within the company owned by the wife of ...

The director of TTY rubber company, whose guards shot four land protestors in Kratie province last week, said he will give land back to the protesting villagers, backtracking on his vow Friday not to give up any of the land granted to him by the ...

Cambodia’s 2011 rubber exports and export prices grew by 5.5 per cent and 131 per cent respectively, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce obtained by the Post. The data shows rubber exports last year totalled 46,727 tonnes, compared to 30,040 tonnes in 2010. Export ...

Villagers from Kratie province, who blocked National Road 76a last week after four of their own were shot by guards working for agro-development firm TTY, appear to be on their way to receiving farmland they lost to the company in an economic land concession. A statement ...

Strong growth in garment, textile, and agricultural exports drove a 42.7 per cent increase in Cambodia’s total exports for 2011, official Ministry of Commerce data shows. The Kingdom exported $4.98 billion in goods last year, compared with $3.49 billion the year before. Market diversification and a relaxing ...